Research exercise: Review of Relevant Literature: Developing Social Consciousness through Young Adult Literature

This project consists of a Review of the Literature as a preliminary component of a developing Honors thesis regarding young adult literature. In their formative years, American children and teens often encounter and even incorporate ethnocentric biases into their ways of thinking. Some young adult fiction can reinforce these ideas. The aim of this research project is to present readings in which young adult literature can foster a more global and open-minded outlook which will allow young adults to recognize commonalities, overlook differences, and promote tolerance. At the same time, the researcher intends to consider the way notions of globalism interact with notions of universalism, and how young adult literature contributes to this conversation. This study will contribute to the larger body of scholarship as it questions some notions of American ethnocentrism in order to consider a more culturally relative outlook; at the same time, it will explore the way assertions such as universal human rights function in conjunction with notions of relativity. This thesis will demonstrate ways in which young adult literature can affect social change through both a recognition of commonalities and respect for differences. The objective of the preliminary Review of Literature will be to gather other scholarship in this arena, study, compare, contrast, and synthesize it, and position the new research within the larger body of existing scholarship.